The role of personal ethics in politics has never been black and white, but the last few decades have made it even more unclear. Historically, personal morality was considered an important feature of elected officials, but when it came to voting, the most important factors were consistently fame and platform. Many historians believe Abraham Lincoln won his Presidency by dressing, acting, and growing facial hair in ways considered highly attractive to women at the time, who then influenced their husbands to vote for him.
Immorality has been common in the White House throughout history. Much of it is forgotten or ignored by history, but at the time was generally controversial. Thomas Jefferson had an illicit relationship with one of his slaves while in office *. Lyndon B. Johnson was more vulgar, more racist, and even more misogynistic than Donald Trump, by a long shot. Kennedy was on amphetamines and other drugs (see "Dr. Feelgood" for more information) for part of his Presidency (and when White House doctors finally put an end to it, his judgement is said to have improved dramatically). I think we all know what Bill Clinton did (see Monica Lewinsky if not), and then he lied about it in court, for which there is video evidence. Nixon actually ended up resigning for activities that probably would have earned him criminal convictions, if his Vice President, Gerald Ford, had not pardoned him as soon as he took office after Nixon's resignation (which many people considered an immoral act by Ford). And this is not all. These are just the highlights.
Donald Trump is not clean either. He has openly and proudly admitted to immoral acts, and he has been accused of (without proof) many more. Donald Trump is either a pathological liar or spends a lot of time talking about things he never knew much about or has forgotten what he did know. He's not even close to the most immoral President the U.S. has ever had, but when it comes to morality, he's definitely not a good role model.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has actually done a lot of good things for the U.S., many of which previous Presidents have failed at. He has done a better job of keeping campaign promises than many Presidents, even when public opinion has shifted to favor those promises less. He averted potential disaster with North Korea, and he improved our poor relationship with Russia, which was also a cause for concern that previous Presidents failed to alleviate. While he takes far more credit for the state of our economy than he deserves (just like every other President), he has at least managed to avoid harming it much, which cannot even be said for several other recent Presidents. His heavy handed approach to trade negotiations seems to have worked out in our favor, on average, even if it was not perfect and could have harmed our relationships with several trade partners. It has not been perfect. His strict enforcement of Obama's immigration policy, even when it was seriously harming people, was certainly a mistake, though it did little harm to the U.S.. The attempted investigation against Biden was a pretty poor choice, though again if Sanders keeps his lead in the primaries, none of that will have mattered. And Trump certainly is not the first President to leverage executive power over foreign policy and aid to give himself an advantage in an election (which is actually common practice, though most Presidents attempt to boost their own reputations this way instead of tear down specific opponents). Overall, Trump has managed to do a lot of beneficial things previous Presidents either tried to do and failed or just refused to do.
Trump is certainly immoral and even distasteful, but is this a good reason to vote for someone else, if Trump is actually doing a fairly good job as President? This is a question many Republicans are coming up against this year. There is no question, Trump is going to get the Republican nomination. Sanders is currently the front runner for the Democratic nomination, and odds are looking good that he will stay there. Many Republicans voted for Hillary in 2016, because they either did not think Trump could to the job or because they did not feel right about voting for someone as immoral as Trump. Trump has proven that he can do the job, but his immorality is still a problem. Hillary was fairly moderate though, compared to Sanders. While there are some Republicans who would prefer Sanders outright, most are strongly opposed to Sanders' socialist agenda, even as moderate as it has become in recent years.
Who do you vote for, when faced with an immoral candidate and a candidate who's political platform you very strongly disagree with? Is it wrong to vote for an immoral candidate who has proven to be a fairly good President? Is it right to vote to replace a President who has done a fairly good job, merely because you disagree with his morality? These are the questions many Republicans are finding themselves wondering about this year. For them, the choice in November is not going to be about which platform they agree with most. It is going to be about whether platform or morality is more important in a leader. It is going to be about whether they can tolerate Medicare for All, if it is the only way to get a President with good morals. It may not come to that. Historically, every impeachment has flipped Congress, giving the party that did not initiate the impeachment control of Congress, and there is no reason to believe things will be any different this time. Even if Sanders does get elected, he will almost certainly be up against a Republican controlled House and Senate, but that will not last forever. Even if he serves only one term, there will be a chance to flip control in 2022. If we can learn anything with history, odds if this are low, such a short time after the impeachment, but there is still a possibility. If he serves two terms, then there will be three chances to flip Congress and get Medicare for All through. Over 8 years, odds of it happening at least once are a lot better. So again, is it worth the risk to have a morally acceptable President, or is avoiding Medicare for All and potentially other socialist programs worth reelecting an obviously morally corrupt President?
I do not have an answer. I am generally conservative, but I also support common sense change that has been reasonably tested, and I am willing to support some controversial change, so long as it is treated as an experiment that can be ended if it fails, rather than as a silver bullet that is going to solve everything even though it has never been tested. (I am a fan of the empirical method, and I believe it should be applied to governance.) I do not like Donald Trump as a person, but I will not let that taint by view of his performance as President, which has been better than average, as far as U.S. Presidents go. I am concerned about his morals, but I recognize that a bad President with good morals could be far more harmful to the U.S. than a good President with bad morals. I am not strongly opposed to Sanders. He has some good ideas, some of which have been successfully tested either in experiments or in other countries. I do find some of his platform disturbing and problematic, but I doubt even a Democratic Congress would let the worst stuff get by it. I am fairly content that Sanders could not do anything seriously harmful, even under a Democratic Congress. Similarly, I am fairly content that Trump could not do anything seriously harmful under a Republican Congress, though I have less concern here, because he has not yet attempted to get Congress to do anything seriously harmful. I will not discuss my voting plans here, but I will say that I do not think Trump or Sanders is the devil. Sanders has become a lot more moderate in his socialist agenda, such that it is far more in line with the will of the people. Trump has proven that he can do the job, and while he has not done it perfectly, he has done better than many past Presidents. Trump is not even close to the most immoral President we have ever had. He is more distasteful than downright bad. Sanders seems to be generally a good person. His current agenda is not the most progressive/socialist agenda a President has ever had. Like Trump's morality, Sanders' political agenda is more distasteful than potentially seriously harmful at this point. It might be fun to apply hyperbole to Sanders platform, but the reality is, it is not really communist, and most of it is not socialist. Even Medicare for All is less socialist than our current medical welfare system, because it gives more people a "vote" in the medical economy. In a sense, Medicare for All is the capitalist approach to medical welfare.
The ultimate question for Republicans this year might just be, who do you vote for, when you have a good President who is a bad person, and the alternative would make, in your opinion, a bad President who is a good person?
* To be fair to Jefferson, his wife died before he was ever elected President, so there is no evidence of adultery. Further, by all accounts, he was completely faithful to the slave woman, treated her (and his other slaves) as family, and would likely have married her if it was legal and socially and politically acceptable for him to do so. While his affair is often presented as an example of a President being extremely unfaithful, immoral, and even coercive, the reality is that the relationship was almost equivalent to living with your girlfriend who also happens to be your maid.
28 February 2020
23 February 2020
Is Modern Physics Failing?
I just read this article from 2018: https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/07/20/this-simple-thought-experiment-shows-why-we-need-quantum-gravity/
That article makes me question the value we are getting out of modern physics. Now, I don't have a degree in physics. I have as much formal physics education as is generally required for electrical engineers. Informally, I have audited or otherwise sat in on a few more advanced physics courses, and I have even done the coursework, as I had time. I have also spent significant time learning about physics independently, and I have tried to keep up on cutting edge stuff and new discoveries. I have a decent understanding of most of quantum physics (as much as anyone can understand it, I suppose). I understand gravity better than a handful of people with Masters and PhDs in physics (some were even professors I had). I also worked very hard to gain the ability to comprehend four dimensions in a spacial sense, quite successfully (I still struggle with more than that, though mathematically it is quite easy). I am no expert on physics, but I am very familiar with the big stuff and with a fair amount of the recent stuff. I know when physicists are sugar coating things or even spreading outright falsehoods though, and that article is full of that.
First, the article actually does a pretty good job of discussing why we need to understand gravity at the quantum scale. We have no clue how gravity affects interaction at that scale or if it even does. Gravity is such a weak force at that scale that it is currently impossible to even measure. That does not mean it has no effect though. Some of this is pure curiosity, with no practical application, but it is impossible to distinguish. Much of modern technology is built on scientific discoveries that had no practical application until long after their discoveries. The majority of modern science has no known practical applications, but just the tiny bits and pieces that have found practical applications have more than made up for all of the work that went into the rest.
The most serious problem with this article is the assertions at the beginning regarding the quality of General Relativity and the Standard Model. The author asserts,
The Standard Model has its own problems. Contrary to what the author claims, observation has not agreed perfectly with the Standard Model, and in fact, over the last decade, more and more particle physicists have started questioning adherence to and study of the Standard Model, because of how poorly it predicts certain things. One of the biggest failures of the standard model has been accurately predicting the mass and the magnitude of other properties of new particles. The Standard Model does not formally predict all properties of new particles, but informal predictions made based on Standard Model have have never proved accurate. In some cases, predictions based on the Standard Model have been surprisingly inaccurate. The standard model is actually less of a theory and more of an observation based model mixed with a handful of axiomatic theories, at this point. The Standard Model constantly needs updates as new particles are discovered and properties of known particles are more precisely measured. Physicists claim the Standard Model predicts only interactions, not the strength of those interactions, largely because when it does try to make predictions, they are invariably incorrect. The discrepancies are often quite small, but physics is supposedly a precise, mathematically governed field, making any discrepancy between predictions and observations a serious concern for a theory. As a model, the Standard Model has certainly been valuable, but as a theory capable of making more than the most basic predictions accurately, it is actually terrible. The list of outstanding highly incorrect predictions include the atomic radius of muonic hydrogen, which has consistently been measured up to seven standard deviations larger than predicted. The magnetic dipole moment of muons have also been observed to be significantly different from the Standard Model prediction. These are only some of the examples that cannot be easily reconciled with adjustments to the Standard Model. Most deviations are eliminated by changing the Standard Model itself. A theory that has constantly has to be changed to fit observations is not a consistent theory that accurately predicts things. It is a terribly inaccurate theory that constantly has to be replaced with slightly different alternative theories to keep up with observations.
The fact is, the author is completely wrong. Many experiments, measures, and observations have failed to agree with these theories. General Relativity relies heavily on the invention of new forms of matter and energy to explain away its failures, and the Standard Model relies on modifications to itself to hide its failures. Constantly adjusting to every failure does not make a theory accurate. In fact, it suggests that the failure in the theories is so fundamental that the constant adjustments are merely an attempt to mash the theories and observations into agreement with each other, just like Cinderella's sisters cutting off parts of their feet in the attempt to fit the glass slipper.
This is not all though. General Relativity itself has a serious logical flaw that has been known for a long time. Modeling gravity as the warping of space-time is a circular theory. This can be demonstrated easily with the classroom experiment using nylon cloth stretched over a frame. To demonstrate the warping of space-time, a heavy object is placed on the cloth, making a deep indent. Other objects can then be placed on the cloth to demonstrate gravitational attraction as well as be given some momentum to demonstrate orbits. The problem with this is that for the demonstration to work, there must already be gravity, to pull the objects downward, creating the warping in the fabric in the first place, as well as to pull other objects into the simulated gravity well. And this problem remains even as we add dimensions. In three dimensions, there still must be gravitational pull perpendicular to our 3D space for this model to work, the same way the experiment requires gravity perpendicular to the 2D cloth surface, which means our space must be embedded in a four dimensional space, where the source of gravity is perpendicular to all three of our dimensions. But, it does not end there. The theory is circular. For this model to remain coherent, the four dimensional space must be embedded in five dimensions, to provide its perpendicular gravitational force, and so on up to infinite dimensions where no real source of gravity ever exists. Note that this does not mean that space-time does not warp under gravity (and indeed, it has been fairly well proven that it does); it merely means that such warping is not and cannot be the source of gravitational attraction, as predicted by General Relativity.
When it comes down to it, General Relativity and the Standard Model are clearly deeply flawed, to anyone willing to put aside religious devotion to them. They are not useless though, nor do they lack ingenuity or elegance. General Relativity has plenty that is completely correct, and despite its clear failures, it is still one of the most ingenious theories ever constructed. The Standard Model was designed and followed based on the idea that the most elegant theory is the most likely to be correct, and it has certainly found some of that elegance in reality, but its devotion to elegance has consistently lead to its failures where it has turned out that reality is not as elegant as we have hoped it would be. The Standard Model, despite its obvious imperfection, has managed to lead to the prediction and discovery of many particles we did not previously know existed, culminating in the discovery of the Higgs boson. Still, it has failed to consistently make accurate predictions anywhere but in broad details of particle interactions. Both of these theories have served us well and provided great value, but in the end, it is becoming clear that they are so fundamentally flawed that it is time to to start looking elsewhere. They have become cars that cost more just in maintenance than it would cost to replace them. If we continue on, just trying to repair them or invent new stuff to make up the difference, we may end up spending enormous amounts of resources losing sight of reality, ultimately ending up stuck on the side of the road without any other transportation. It is time to consider that maybe our current understanding of science is starting to hinder scientific and technological progress. Maybe the reason we have not had any world changing breakthroughs in the century since Einstein and others rocked the world with relativity and quantum physics is that we have allowed science to be dominated by religious devotion to popular theories that discourages any research that might disagree with or disrupt those theories.
That article makes me question the value we are getting out of modern physics. Now, I don't have a degree in physics. I have as much formal physics education as is generally required for electrical engineers. Informally, I have audited or otherwise sat in on a few more advanced physics courses, and I have even done the coursework, as I had time. I have also spent significant time learning about physics independently, and I have tried to keep up on cutting edge stuff and new discoveries. I have a decent understanding of most of quantum physics (as much as anyone can understand it, I suppose). I understand gravity better than a handful of people with Masters and PhDs in physics (some were even professors I had). I also worked very hard to gain the ability to comprehend four dimensions in a spacial sense, quite successfully (I still struggle with more than that, though mathematically it is quite easy). I am no expert on physics, but I am very familiar with the big stuff and with a fair amount of the recent stuff. I know when physicists are sugar coating things or even spreading outright falsehoods though, and that article is full of that.
First, the article actually does a pretty good job of discussing why we need to understand gravity at the quantum scale. We have no clue how gravity affects interaction at that scale or if it even does. Gravity is such a weak force at that scale that it is currently impossible to even measure. That does not mean it has no effect though. Some of this is pure curiosity, with no practical application, but it is impossible to distinguish. Much of modern technology is built on scientific discoveries that had no practical application until long after their discoveries. The majority of modern science has no known practical applications, but just the tiny bits and pieces that have found practical applications have more than made up for all of the work that went into the rest.
The most serious problem with this article is the assertions at the beginning regarding the quality of General Relativity and the Standard Model. The author asserts,
General Relativity describes gravity perfectly everywhere we've ever looked. From the smallest-scale attractions we've ever measured in a laboratory to the expansion and curvature of space due to Earth, the Sun, black holes, galaxies, or the entire Universe, our observations and measurements have never deviated from what we've observed.(I am sure the author meant "from what we've predicted" right at the end) and then follows that with,
The Standard Model is equally successful for the other three forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.and concludes with,
Every experiment, measurement, and observation has agreed perfectly with these two theories.These assertions are incredibly wrong. General Relativity has consistently failed to predict observations of other galaxies correctly. Observations of other galaxies consistently find far less mass than General Relativity predicts is necessary for them to avoid breaking apart and flying in all directions. This is, in fact, why Dark Matter, a theory that is not part of General Relativity or the Standard Model, was invented. General Relativity is only consistent with observations, because scientists decided that there must be another type of matter we cannot detect to make up the difference between observation and prediction. By itself, General Relativity fails badly at large scales. That is not the only failure of General Relativity though. General Relativity also predicts that all matter in the universe should eventually stop moving away and start coming back together. In fact, there are two problems here. One is that the early universe seems to have expanded much faster than General Relativity predicts. A new particle, the inflaton, has been theorized to explain that (also, unproven properties of the Higgs field have been suggested to explain some of that). Dark Energy has been theorized to explain current expansion of the universe. Neither of these are part of General Relativity or the Standard Model, which cannot explain cosmic expansion without them and fail to make accurate predictions without them.
The Standard Model has its own problems. Contrary to what the author claims, observation has not agreed perfectly with the Standard Model, and in fact, over the last decade, more and more particle physicists have started questioning adherence to and study of the Standard Model, because of how poorly it predicts certain things. One of the biggest failures of the standard model has been accurately predicting the mass and the magnitude of other properties of new particles. The Standard Model does not formally predict all properties of new particles, but informal predictions made based on Standard Model have have never proved accurate. In some cases, predictions based on the Standard Model have been surprisingly inaccurate. The standard model is actually less of a theory and more of an observation based model mixed with a handful of axiomatic theories, at this point. The Standard Model constantly needs updates as new particles are discovered and properties of known particles are more precisely measured. Physicists claim the Standard Model predicts only interactions, not the strength of those interactions, largely because when it does try to make predictions, they are invariably incorrect. The discrepancies are often quite small, but physics is supposedly a precise, mathematically governed field, making any discrepancy between predictions and observations a serious concern for a theory. As a model, the Standard Model has certainly been valuable, but as a theory capable of making more than the most basic predictions accurately, it is actually terrible. The list of outstanding highly incorrect predictions include the atomic radius of muonic hydrogen, which has consistently been measured up to seven standard deviations larger than predicted. The magnetic dipole moment of muons have also been observed to be significantly different from the Standard Model prediction. These are only some of the examples that cannot be easily reconciled with adjustments to the Standard Model. Most deviations are eliminated by changing the Standard Model itself. A theory that has constantly has to be changed to fit observations is not a consistent theory that accurately predicts things. It is a terribly inaccurate theory that constantly has to be replaced with slightly different alternative theories to keep up with observations.
The fact is, the author is completely wrong. Many experiments, measures, and observations have failed to agree with these theories. General Relativity relies heavily on the invention of new forms of matter and energy to explain away its failures, and the Standard Model relies on modifications to itself to hide its failures. Constantly adjusting to every failure does not make a theory accurate. In fact, it suggests that the failure in the theories is so fundamental that the constant adjustments are merely an attempt to mash the theories and observations into agreement with each other, just like Cinderella's sisters cutting off parts of their feet in the attempt to fit the glass slipper.
This is not all though. General Relativity itself has a serious logical flaw that has been known for a long time. Modeling gravity as the warping of space-time is a circular theory. This can be demonstrated easily with the classroom experiment using nylon cloth stretched over a frame. To demonstrate the warping of space-time, a heavy object is placed on the cloth, making a deep indent. Other objects can then be placed on the cloth to demonstrate gravitational attraction as well as be given some momentum to demonstrate orbits. The problem with this is that for the demonstration to work, there must already be gravity, to pull the objects downward, creating the warping in the fabric in the first place, as well as to pull other objects into the simulated gravity well. And this problem remains even as we add dimensions. In three dimensions, there still must be gravitational pull perpendicular to our 3D space for this model to work, the same way the experiment requires gravity perpendicular to the 2D cloth surface, which means our space must be embedded in a four dimensional space, where the source of gravity is perpendicular to all three of our dimensions. But, it does not end there. The theory is circular. For this model to remain coherent, the four dimensional space must be embedded in five dimensions, to provide its perpendicular gravitational force, and so on up to infinite dimensions where no real source of gravity ever exists. Note that this does not mean that space-time does not warp under gravity (and indeed, it has been fairly well proven that it does); it merely means that such warping is not and cannot be the source of gravitational attraction, as predicted by General Relativity.
When it comes down to it, General Relativity and the Standard Model are clearly deeply flawed, to anyone willing to put aside religious devotion to them. They are not useless though, nor do they lack ingenuity or elegance. General Relativity has plenty that is completely correct, and despite its clear failures, it is still one of the most ingenious theories ever constructed. The Standard Model was designed and followed based on the idea that the most elegant theory is the most likely to be correct, and it has certainly found some of that elegance in reality, but its devotion to elegance has consistently lead to its failures where it has turned out that reality is not as elegant as we have hoped it would be. The Standard Model, despite its obvious imperfection, has managed to lead to the prediction and discovery of many particles we did not previously know existed, culminating in the discovery of the Higgs boson. Still, it has failed to consistently make accurate predictions anywhere but in broad details of particle interactions. Both of these theories have served us well and provided great value, but in the end, it is becoming clear that they are so fundamentally flawed that it is time to to start looking elsewhere. They have become cars that cost more just in maintenance than it would cost to replace them. If we continue on, just trying to repair them or invent new stuff to make up the difference, we may end up spending enormous amounts of resources losing sight of reality, ultimately ending up stuck on the side of the road without any other transportation. It is time to consider that maybe our current understanding of science is starting to hinder scientific and technological progress. Maybe the reason we have not had any world changing breakthroughs in the century since Einstein and others rocked the world with relativity and quantum physics is that we have allowed science to be dominated by religious devotion to popular theories that discourages any research that might disagree with or disrupt those theories.
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